


Artemis

by emmagnetised



Series: All The Little Lights [9]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Happily Ever After AU, Multi, The Avengers Won, The Wyvern, Tony Stark's Sister, one shots, team fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-02-07 05:46:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21452986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmagnetised/pseuds/emmagnetised
Summary: Maggie had overheard a conversation between Wanda and Vision in the kitchen:"I can sense… another mind in the facility. One I can't account for.""An intruder?""I'm not sure. This mind is… difficult to read. I can't catch any thoughts familiar to me, and I'm very confused but I don't think the mind is dangerous. I don't know what to do.""Stay alert to your surroundings. And the moment you sense any danger you can alert F.R.I.D.A.Y. or any of the rest of us, you know that.""… I know."
Relationships: Clint Barton/Laura Barton, James "Bucky" Barnes/Original Female Character(s), Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Wanda Maximoff/Vision
Series: All The Little Lights [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1305146
Comments: 13
Kudos: 57





	Artemis

**Author's Note:**

> Couldn't leave you with that teaser from last one shot for long! Enjoy :)

After a long day of Stark Industries meetings Maggie drove back into the Avengers Facility and strolled toward her and Bucky's quarters, saying hi to various Avengers as she came across them. Peter had come by for a training session with Natasha, but once Maggie was satisfied that he was likely to survive the session she continued over to her place. She and Bucky spent about half their time at the facility these days, and the other half at their house on the lake.

When she opened the door she called "I'm back! How was Brooklyn?" and dropped her bag on the entryway table. Sighing, she walked into the living area.

Bucky stood in the middle of the living room, his hands behind his back and a guilty expression on his face as he looked up at her.

Maggie's eyes narrowed. "What."

Bucky blew out a breath, winced, and then slowly brought his hands from behind his back.

A few seconds of silence passed.

"Is that a dog," Maggie said.

Bucky nodded carefully, his eyes on her face. "It is."

The dog in question was actually a puppy, cradled on its back in Bucky's hands. Maggie had read up on dog breeds a few years ago so she was fairly sure she was looking at a Doberman Pinscher; it had a glossy black and brown coat, big dark eyes, floppy ears and paws way too big for its legs. Speaking of which…

"Is that a _three-legged _dog."

"Yes."

The dog's front right leg was missing, its chest a smooth curve where there should have been a leg. The dog didn't seem to mind: it wriggled curiously in Bucky's hands with its big floppy paws flailing, burying its wet nose in Bucky's metal hand and making little _arf _noises.

Maggie found herself unconsciously moving forward, fascinated by the excitable little animal. She liked animals, that was something she'd discovered about herself years ago. Ever since Bucky first taught her how to pet a dog she'd been perfectly happy greeting dogs, cats, and even police horses when she came across them.

She approached Bucky and reached out to the puppy. It flung its single foreleg up to bare its soft stomach, so Maggie placed her palm on it and scratched. The puppy wriggled again so it could press its nose against Maggie's hand, then opened its mouth to trap her thumb between its baby teeth. It didn't bite, just held its little teeth against her skin and licked the pad of her finger. Maggie noted that the dog was a girl. She then traced her fingers over the little nub where a leg must once have been.

The puppy was warm under her hand, and as Maggie kept scratching her she yawned, mouth wide and eyes screwed shut.

Maggie looked up at Bucky, who was grinning from ear to ear. When he saw her looking he tried to stop but he couldn't quite hide the smile.

"Why is there a dog?"

The puppy wriggled again, and Bucky gently set her on the ground. Maggie watched the puppy amble away on three legs, the back legs propelling her forward and the front one hopping to keep up. As Maggie watched the puppy she fell forward, rolled, then got back to her feet to keep exploring. She sniffed Maggie's right shoe, which housed her nanotech prosthetic foot.

Bucky opened and closed his mouth. "There was… I was walking around Brooklyn, and they had this rescue shelter and I don't even know why I went in, but…" Maggie looked from Bucky's face and back to the floppy, falling over dog. The puppy sat so far back on her hindquarters that she almost fell over, and looked up at Maggie with those big dark eyes. Bucky shifted his feet and she looked back. She wasn't sure who had bigger puppy eyes – him or the dog.

He swallowed. "I'm sorry I didn't ask you beforehand, and I know there's a rule about no animals at the facility–"

"We're keeping her," Maggie said.

He blinked. "Oh. You're sure? I know this is a lot of responsibility, and I wanted to make it clear that you don't have to look after her if you don't want to, but I hoped… I hoped she could be _our _dog."

Maggie met his wide, hopeful eyes for a few moments before crouching down to scoop up the puppy. She was warm and soft in her hands – and very wriggly. "She is our dog," Maggie said firmly. When she looked back to Bucky he was beaming again. "What's her name?"

"They were callin' her Artemis down at the shelter. They reckon she's about six weeks old, she's had all her shots and has a chip – which is apparently something they do with dogs in the future."

"You know you're allowed to call it the _present _now," she said wryly, then looked down at the dog. "Artemis? Like the Greek goddess?"

Bucky shrugged. "I thought it was a good name."

"I agree." Maggie smiled at Artemis for the first time, and scratched around her ears. Artemis's ears flopped back. Maggie let out a breath and marveled at the feeling of her mind adjusting to this new change. Her conceptualization of her and Bucky's life shifted as she stood with the puppy in her arms, her thoughts already abuzz with things to research, items to buy, vets to find. She ran her hand over Artemis's side. "The leg?"

Bucky dangled his fingers over Artemis's nose while the puppy tried her best to lick him. "They said someone found her at a dump when she was just a week old. They think she was born with all four legs but… something happened, and she got abandoned." Maggie looked up into his face and took in the darkness there.

"And then you took her home," she said softly.

"I like that. Home."

She smiled. "Can't go on the run with a puppy, handsome. I think we might be stuck here."

The corners of his eyes crinkled. "Can't think of anything I'd like more." He leaned in and they kissed, with the wriggling puppy in between their bodies. Maggie broke the kiss with a grin when Artemis closed her teeth around her hand again.

"You did mention the rule about animals at the facility," she said drily. "And we can't leave her at the house while we're both here all the time. I assume this means we're about to become co-conspirators?"

"It's a stupid rule anyway."

She grinned. "Apparently we live in a very important strategic, political, and scientific location, and they don't want animals running loose inside it."

"And yet they let Wilson walk around," Bucky grumbled.

Maggie laughed so hard she had to put Artemis down, and they watched the three legged puppy amble-walk-fall across the room toward the wide window. Bucky wrapped his arm around Maggie's waist.

"I hope you realize the irony of having two humans and a dog with only" – she counted – "nine limbs between them."

"That's plenty of limbs. Who needs 'em?" He nodded across the room as Artemis reached around to bite her own tail. "Artemis sure doesn't."

"Alright," Maggie breathed with a laugh. "Let's hatch some plans."

* * *

Maggie and Bucky spent the next few days kitting out their shared apartment with everything a dog might need – bowls, food, a bed, a bath, treats, and probably way too many dog toys. They did the same at their house on the lake. They found a vet in a nearby small town who promised to be discreet, and within the space of a week read up everything they could about caring for dogs. And, using the espionage skills they had learned from HYDRA, they kept every new change a secret from everyone they worked and lived with. All the dog equipment could be hidden in the space of two minutes, and they worked out how to plan walks and outside time around the facility schedule. Things were easier at the lake house, but they still kept things discreet.

If Maggie hadn't fallen in love with Artemis in their first meeting, she certainly had by the end of the first day. Though still young and clumsy, Artemis was an intelligent, affectionate, curious dog. She scoped out every inch of her new living space and dug her wet nose into each corner and narrow space. She responded well to the initial training Maggie and Bucky gave her (not allowed on the bed, only allowed on the couch when invited, don't pee inside), and seemed to crave affection and all the food she could get her paws on. Bucky was initially much better with the training and feeding since he'd grown up around neighbor's dogs in Brooklyn, but Maggie watched him carefully and quickly learned the ropes.

The first night, Maggie and Bucky settled Artemis into her soft grey dog bed and watched her go to sleep with her nose tucked under her foreleg. They'd intended to go to their own bed to sleep, but when they woke up in the morning they were still sitting on either side of the dog bed on the floor, propped against each other with their hands clasped.

As the days and weeks passed Artemis grew upwards and outwards, slowing growing into her paws and putting on muscle. She got better at walking, and Maggie and Bucky taught her how to climb up stairs and jump on the couch. Artemis had no pain or joint problems from her missing leg, though she seemed to get tired easily. They took walks through the forest, and if Artemis got too tired on the way back either Maggie or Bucky would put her on their shoulder and carry her home.

"The good thing is that we'll be able to do this no matter how big she gets," Maggie reflected with satisfaction as she carried the panting Artemis on her right shoulder. "This is an excellent use for super serum."

Bucky found a quiet place by the lake at the facility for Artemis to swim, and she took to the water with such eagerness that they gave her the pet name Fish. She loved the lake at their house upstate.

Artemis liked Bucky's arm, and Maggie's leg and wings. She licked the arm whenever she got the chance so Bucky started carrying around wipes specifically to clean up dog slobber ("If only HYDRA could see me now," he laughed one afternoon as he cleaned his arm while trying to fend off Artemis).

Artemis liked peanut butter, and baths, and hiding for just long enough to give both Maggie and Bucky a near-heart attack. At a few months old they found a puppy obedience course in the nearby small town and got her used to socializing with other dogs and obeying commands. When they took her for walks at the lake house they took the long way around the lake so the Stark family in the other house wouldn't spot her.

* * *

"Darcy."

Darcy Lewis, research assistant and lab manager in the physics labs of the Avengers Facility, looked up from her lunch to see Margaret Stark and Bucky Barnes standing in front of her table.

She eyed them. "Why do you look like you're about to tell me you need my liver?"

"We don't need your liver," Maggie said.

Darcy got on well with the pair of supersoldiers. She'd chatted to Bucky at Pepper's bachelorette party and helped him knock out a mob boss, and she and Maggie worked together from time to time in the labs. Maggie was more or less sensible compared to the other scientists, but when it came to inventing she sometimes needed to be reminded to eat and sleep. Alas, such was Darcy's cross to bear.

"So what's up?" She nodded to the seats across the table from her, and Bucky and Maggie sat. Their faces were serious and… nervous? They shared a glance, and then looked back at Darcy.

"Darcy," Bucky said again. And then stopped.

"Bucky." She shifted her gaze. "Maggie. Is this an intervention for something?"

"No," Maggie said, then sighed and bit the bullet. "There's an Avengers mission coming up. We'll probably be flying out in the next few hours."

"I know," Darcy said. "I work in the operations room sometimes and they've asked me to help out."

Maggie and Bucky shared another glance. "Will you need to be in there the whole time?"

She shrugged. "I'm not essential staff, so probably not." A terrible thought occurred to her. "Wait, you're not asking me to come on this mission are you? Why would you–"

Bucky held up his metal hand. "We're not." He glanced once more at Maggie, and then turned back. "We need your help."

She eyed them. "You need _my _help? What can I do that a pair of super soldiers can't? Apart from catch the common cold?"

Bucky leaned forward. "Alright, so… we've been keeping a secret."

* * *

Darcy ducked in and out of the Stark/Barnes apartment for the entirety of the mission, reveling in playing with the adorable three legged puppy. Maggie and Bucky had the _best _secrets.

F.R.I.D.A.Y. (who was apparently keeping the secret as well, as long as Artemis caused no issues) helped her with her questions about rules for the puppy and where certain things were kept.

After the two day mission Maggie and Bucky returned to much excitement and licking from Artemis, and gave Darcy a huge bouquet of flowers and a promise she could visit Artemis whenever she liked. Jane saw the flowers and asked if she had a boyfriend she didn't know about, and Darcy replied: "No, but I have met the love of my life." Jane looked confused, but then her machines beeped so boyfriends and flowers were forgotten.

* * *

Wanda was the first to figure it out. Maggie had noticed her suspicious and confused glances for a while now, and they'd once had a close call in the forest while Maggie and Bucky were walking Artemis. Maggie overheard a conversation between Wanda and Vision in the kitchen:

"I can sense… another mind in the facility. One I can't account for."

"An intruder?" Vision asked, alarmed.

"I'm not sure. This mind is… difficult to read. I can't catch any thoughts familiar to me, and I'm very confused but I don't think the mind is dangerous. I don't know what to do."

"Stay alert to your surroundings. And the moment you sense any danger you can alert F.R.I.D.A.Y. or any of the rest of us, you know that."

"… I know."

So when Wanda appeared at Maggie's door one evening, her shoulders straight and her face determined, Maggie just sighed and let her in.

Wanda took one look at Artemis half-draped over Bucky's lap on the couch and exclaimed: "I knew it!"

Bucky glanced up with wide eyes, then shot Maggie a bewildered look.

She shrugged at him. "We could hardly expect to keep Artemis a secret from an advanced telepath forever."

Bucky turned back to Wanda and his metal hand curved over Artemis's back. "She's a secret," he said firmly.

Wanda's look of righteous vindication faded and she walked toward the couch. She wore dark jeans, boots crusted with mud, and a soft mauve hoodie – she must have been wandering the facility in search of the unfamiliar mind. Maggie followed her to the couch and watched her warm brown eyes soften as she looked down at the snoozing Artemis. Bucky tried to pretend he was strict on boundaries with Artemis, but they spent most of their time together lying on the couch, watching TV or reading a book (well, Bucky read the book, and Artemis stared at Bucky's face as if he'd hung the moon).

"What's her name?" Wanda murmured.

"Artemis."

Artemis's ears perked up and she looked first at Bucky, then turned and saw Wanda. Her tail started to wag.

Wanda cocked her head and smiled. "She recognizes her name."

"I should hope so, we've only been trying to train her every day," Bucky said wryly. Artemis had proved true to her breed – intelligent, eager to please, but in need of careful training.

"No, I mean…" Wanda moved again slowly, sitting on the couch beside Bucky. She didn't take her eyes off Artemis. "I can sense her mind."

"What's it like?" Bucky asked. Artemis wriggled to her feet and hopped across the couch toward Wanda, wagging her tail when she got the attention was after.

Wanda smiled as she scratched Artemis's ears. "I haven't been around many animals, which is why it took me so long to figure it out. But her mind is… warm. More unfocused than a human mind, more impulse-driven, but filled with affection." Artemis pushed her way into Wanda's lap and slumped, baring her stomach. Wanda smiled and started scratching her belly. "She likes that."

"Don't need to be a telepath to work that out," Maggie smiled. "You'll keep her a secret?"

"Of course," Wanda said with a wave of her hand. But then she looked up and glanced between Bucky and Maggie wryly. "You really think you can keep her a secret from everyone else for so long?"

Maggie shrugged. "I've actually been working on loosening the rules about animals – suggesting we start working with scent dogs, therapy animals, that sort of thing."

"Espionage and internal manipulation," Wanda said with a smirk. "Clever."

"Well now you're making me sound like an evil mastermind," Maggie said. She leaned over the back of the couch and scratched the underside of Artemis's jaw. "I just want to make sure Artemis has a home that's safe, where people love her."

Wanda closed her eyes. "She already has one."

* * *

Vision, who sometimes seemed like a telepath himself when it came to Wanda, figured it out pretty soon after that. He was reticent about breaking the facility rules, but it only took an afternoon in the forest with Artemis while Wanda described the unfocused, warm affection she sensed in Artemis, for him to agree to keep the secret. He seemed bemused by Artemis, and Artemis by him – Artemis spent a good deal of time just sniffing him the first time she met him, but seemed to warm to him once he'd been taught how to pat her. She didn't seem to notice the difference between his 'human' form and his maroon android form. Artemis was the first household pet Vision had ever properly met, and he seemed to enjoy watching her run and play and interact with the world.

"Her ability to adapt to her missing leg is remarkable," he commented one morning as he walked through the forest with Maggie and Artemis. "As far as I can tell it has had no ill effect on her health or ability."

"Apparently that's common for three legged dogs. They just… keep on going." Artemis ran three rings around Maggie and Vision, paused briefly to stick her head between Vision's knees, and then darted into the underbrush to sniff a pinecone. "A prosthetic would just slow her down." Maggie kicked her own prosthetic through a pile of leaves.

"Do you think that's why Bucky chose her?" Vision wondered. "The leg?"

Maggie smiled. "The way he tells it, Artemis chose _him. _But… yes, I think it would be disingenuous to say that the similarity had nothing to do with it. He saw an abandoned dog who'd lost a limb in an accident, alone in the world, and…" she took a deep breath. "I think if we go much farther down this comparison I'll get very sad."

Vision cocked his head at her. "And now both Bucky and Artemis have you."

She ducked her head and smiled. "And I have them."

Then Artemis ran directly into a massive, muddy puddle, and her smile turned into an exasperated sigh.

* * *

Five months in, Natasha noticed a single dog hair on Bucky's jeans.

Maggie and Bucky returned to their apartment later that day to find the former assassin sitting on their couch with the now fairly large Artemis in her lap and one eyebrow raised.

Maggie and Bucky reacted poorly to seeing an intruder in their home.

Once Bucky had put away his knife and Maggie had retracted her wings, Bucky held up a hand. "Natasha, we–"

"I want visitation rights," Natasha said.

Maggie and Bucky glanced at each other. "What?"

"At least one weekly walk," she clarified. "And I'll keep this a secret."

Maggie and Bucky shared one last glance then turned back to Natasha.

"Of course," Maggie said.

Bucky eyed Artemis, who lay across the Black Widow's lap in a state of near bliss with her legs splayed and her eyes closed. He looked back up at Natasha. "Didn't take you for a dog person."

"No one ever does." Natasha gently lifted Artemis (not such a simple feat any more, as she was over 50 pounds and 19 inches tall at the shoulder) and set her on the ground. Artemis seemed displeased at having to stand on her own three legs, but after shaking herself she looked up, spotted Bucky and Maggie by the door, and loped over with an excited whine.

"I'll be back on Saturday to walk her," Natasha said, and with one more eyebrow arch she strode toward the front door. Artemis looked up hopefully and Natasha paused for a second to give her one last pet between her ears before leaving the apartment.

Maggie and Bucky looked from the closed door, to each other, to the lanky dog sitting on the floor and wagging her tail.

Bucky pointed at Artemis. "Some guard dog you are."

She leaped forward to lick his metal finger.

* * *

After that, Bucky decided to tell Steve. He'd noticed his oldest friend moping around in his off hours at the Facility, and Maggie agreed that the one hundred year old could do with some creature comfort.

But first, Bucky had to convince Steve to overlook the facility rule about animals. Maggie drafted conversation tactics to guilt, entice, and threaten Steve into not exposing Artemis, but Bucky insisted that that wouldn't be necessary.

It turned out he was right. Steve, who had been breaking rules his whole life, readily agreed to allowing Artemis to keep living in the facility in secret.

It turned out that Artemis couldn't quite keep up with Steve on his early morning runs, but Steve didn't mind slowing down the pace. He took a photo of Artemis asleep on his shield, her limbs askew as she drooled on the Vibranium, and he was only narrowly persuaded not to make the photo his phone background.

* * *

One morning, Sam was walking through the residential area when he asked: "F.R.I.D.A.Y., where's Steve at?"

"Captain Rogers is currently in Ms Stark and Sergeant Barnes's residential area, along with its other usual occupants."

"Cheers."

Unbeknownst to Sam F.R.I.D.A.Y. alerted the occupants of the apartment to his incoming presence, which was followed by a short, hurried conversation and a mutual agreement.

Sam had never been in Maggie and Bucky's private quarters at the facility before (though he'd visited their house), but he knew where it was. He knocked on the heavy metal door (remembering that this used to be a secure holding facility), waited for it to slide open and then walked inside.

This apartment was the same basic design as the rest – wide open spaces, modern furniture, soft grey walls. Barnes and Maggie had a much bigger window that took up most of the opposite wall, offering a view of the forest, and there was a strange looking metal statue of wings silhouetted against the glass. They'd knocked down a wall into the next apartment over to expand it once Bucky moved in, and had decorated it with small touches – ornaments, mementos (he spotted a few postcards that looked as if they were from places she and Bucky had been while on the run), colorful art. This was the home of people discovering and reinforcing who they were.

Sam took all this in within the space of a second before his eyes settled on what was currently happening on a dark blue rug in the middle of the floor: Maggie and Steve sat cross legged on the ground, tossing an orange chew toy back and forth as a black and tan dog with three legs chased it.

Sam froze. "Please tell me a wizard hasn't turned Barnes into a dog."

Maggie promptly lost the toy to the dog as she doubled over laughing, and after glancing from the dog to Sam's bewildered face Steve began to laugh as well. The dog propped its single foreleg on Steve's knee and started licking his face.

Sam caught movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to see Barnes's head – his real, human head – look over the back of the couch. He was wearing his usual 'Sam' face: unimpressed and slightly annoyed, covering up his amusement. "She's a _girl_, Wilson," Bucky said as he pointed at the dog. "Anyway, you really think I'd look like that as a dog?"

Sam let out a breath, relieved that he didn't have to put up with any magic bullshit today. He looked from Barnes, horizontal on the couch with his metal arm hanging off the side, to the dog which Steve was currently trying to fend off. "There are… similarities."

Barnes's eyebrows rose. "Like?"

"You're both very hairy." Sam walked over to the rug. The dog abruptly spun away from Steve and loped up to Sam, her ears perked and her mouth open in a friendly grin. "Hello," he said. "What's your name?" He greeted her with a scratch between the ears.

"This is Artemis," Maggie said, her eyes sharp. "She's a secret."

"Sure," Sam shrugged. He'd had plenty of pets growing up, and he didn't see why a dog couldn't live in the residential area of the facility. Artemis loped behind Sam and stuck her head between his legs so her neck was between his knees and she was looking up at him.

"She does that," Steve laughed.

"I think she likes to try to trip us up," Maggie added, smiling at Artemis's head poking between Sam's legs.

Sam leaned down to scratch Artemis's head again. "How long's she been here?"

"About six months."

Sam didn't have time to express his shock at that because Barnes immediately said: "Wait, I haven't shown any of you the new trick she learned!", then rolled off the couch and began showing them how Artemis had learned to weave between Barnes's legs as he walked. Steve's grin was so wide that Sam worried he'd pull a muscle.

"Great," Maggie laughed. "Now she's going to try to trip me up even _more _when I take her for walks. I'm not as steady on the less-than-factory-standard amount of legs as she is."

"Well just learn how to do this then," Barnes shot back with a wink, as Artemis weaved through his legs again.

Sam cleared his throat. "Do you… do you want any company on these walks?"

Maggie smiled and raised her eyebrows at Barnes. "We're going to have to start making a schedule."

* * *

For a long weekend Maggie, Bucky, Wanda, and Vision took a van and went on a road trip to Clint's farm. Artemis sat on Vision's lap for most of the drive with her head hanging out the window and her wagging tail smacking him in the chest. Wanda couldn't stop laughing at Artemis's open mouth and lolling tongue, or the bright, windstrewn thoughts she picked up.

At the farm Artemis played with the Barton dog and the kids, and the adults sat on the porch drinking white wine in the sun (save for Vision, of course). Maggie and Bucky finally got to know the one Avenger they hadn't properly met yet, and his startlingly kind and funny wife. Wanda and Clint had a bond that was plain to see.

_Should've brought Morgan_, Maggie thought with a spike of guilt. But if Morgan found out about Artemis then Tony found out, and the facility found out, and then… well. Maggie would just have to come up with a really great Christmas present this year. She might have to go to space again.

"Y'know," Clint reflected, his eyes on Wanda and Vision's clasped hands. "I'm really glad to see all those idiots living at that facility finally realizing that they can have a family."

"Are we counted as 'those idiots'?" Maggie asked wryly.

"Of course," Clint said. "Look at you, Stark: you've got yourself a boyfriend, a house, and a dog. You're all settled down and domestic."

"Last week she set her hair on fire and almost caused an international incident," Bucky deadpanned.

Maggie smacked him. "That is _such _an exaggeration, and also totally separate events–"

"What I meant," Clint continued, "Is that when I met Nat and Tony and Steve and Banner and the others they were all pretty much alone. They didn't see a future for themselves with other people. Then you lot all showed up." He nodded to the four of them. "And something changed."

"Sometimes you don't realize that you need something until it appears," Wanda said softly, as her eyes flicked to Vision's face. Maggie smiled at them, then met Bucky's eyes. He winked at her. She rolled her eyes and looked out at the lawn where Artemis was lying on her front, panting, while the Bartons' youngest sat on her hindquarters. Artemis craned her neck backward to lick the kid's face, and the kid squealed in delight.

Maggie shivered at her sudden rush of emotion and quickly analyzed the feelings to make sure she wasn't in a risky headspace: Contentment. Love. Affection. _No risk there_.

She got to her feet. "Would anyone like another drink?"

* * *

Artemis was usually very well behaved on walks, aside from sticking her head between people's knees and occasionally chewing on things she wasn't supposed to. Which was why it took Bucky a few seconds to react when all of a sudden her nose twitched, her ears perked up, and she suddenly took off running into the thick of the forest.

"Artemis!" he called, but got no response other than the final glimpse of her black tail as it disappeared into the trees. "Shit."

Artemis might have been just as fast as any four-legged dog, but she had no chance against her super soldier owners. Bucky tore off into the forest after his unruly dog, dodging between the thickset trees and plowing through bushes. Finally he caught up with the three-legged fugitive just as she let out an excited bark and leapt into none other than Bruce Banner's enormous green arms.

Bucky skidded to a halt. Banner stood half-crouched with his arms full of sweaty, writhing dog, his eyes wide behind his glasses. He blinked at Artemis, and his eyes tracked up to Bucky.

"You have a dog," said the scientist. Artemis licked a stripe up his arm. She looked comically small compared to the bulk of the hulk/scientist.

Bucky took a breath. "Yeah."

Bucky watched Bruce adjust to the abrupt arrival of _dog_, his arms careful around Artemis's wriggly form and his eyes wide. He watched questions form on Bruce's face.

But after a long moment Bruce just shrugged, gently lowered Artemis to the ground, and set about thoroughly patting her.

Bucky walked over and scowled down at Artemis, whose tongue lolled out of her mouth. "I thought we talked about running away," he said sternly. Artemis blinked guilelessly up at him. He shook his head at her. "You get this from your mother."

* * *

Then there came a mission where Darcy wasn't available to dogsit, since she was visiting New Asgard with Dr Foster and Dr Selvig. After a quick, panicked conversation Bucky and Maggie ran to find Pepper in her office. There wasn't much time to discuss much of anything with the alarms blaring and the Quinjet ready for takeoff, but they managed to get a wide-eyed and frazzled Pepper to agree to watch out for Artemis under F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s direction while they were gone, and then rushed off to join the team.

Throughout the two-day long mission in the Maldives, while the rest of the team admired the cerulean blue water and poked fun at the fish/aliens they were there to round up, Maggie and Bucky exchanged concerned glances. The Avengers Facility was partly Pepper's baby, and she'd always been the one to lay down the law out of her and Tony. Maggie didn't know what her reaction to a dog would be. Pepper hadn't had a chance to say much beyond "what?" and "o-okay" before they left.

On the Quinjet home, dripping wet and stinking of fish, Bucky squeezed Maggie's hand.

"It'll be alright, doll," he murmured. "Worst comes to worst, we'll buy a spot of land right outside the facility and make her a doghouse for when we're here. Or we'll just quit for good and move back home."

"_We'll _buy a spot?" she murmured back, her eyebrows raised.

He rolled his eyes. "Alright, moneybags, you will. Though I'll have you know I'm not destitute without you. Military backpay is no joke."

"I know, I'm with you for your money."

He raised an eyebrow.

"And Artemis."

His other eyebrow raised, and she grinned. "Oh, and your body."

He snorted so loudly that the other occupants in the Quinjet looked over in alarm, and he waved a hand. "Fish guts," he explained. Everyone on board knew about Artemis save for Rhodey and Tony, but this was for them and Pepper to settle.

The others shrugged and turned back around, but Sam cast one last suspicious glance in Bucky's direction. Bucky flipped him off.

* * *

Back at the Facility, Maggie and Bucky got held up in the decontamination showers because apparently alien fish intestines weren't to be taken lightly. Bruce and Dr Foster were practically rubbing their hands together with glee at the prospect of chemical analysis. Maggie was more interested in engineering than alien insides and she had to see a lady about a dog, so she got out of there as quickly as she could.

But not, apparently, quickly enough. When she and Bucky rushed back to her apartment and flung open the door, Pepper and Artemis weren't alone.

Rhodey was crouched in the middle of their living room, supported by his exoskeleton as Artemis propped her foreleg on his knee and thoroughly licked his face. Morgan stood beside them both, her eyes alight and her hands busy ruffling Artemis's ears like the dog was a machine she'd never seen before. Pepper hid a smile behind her hand from the other side of the kitchen counter.

Rhodey spotted Maggie and Bucky at the door and pointed at them. "I knew it!" he crowed. Artemis left a trail of slobber up his cheek. "I knew you were hiding something, I thought you were pregnant!"

Maggie shut the door behind her, blinking. "I'm not pregnant." She turned to Bucky. "Am I pregnant?"

"Don't think so," he said, eyes still fixed on the newcomers to their living area.

Artemis's ears perked up at their voices and she whirled away from Rhodey and Morgan, her eyes lighting up as she dashed across the room to them. Bucky scooped her up in his arms and laughed as she tried to lick his face and wagged her tail madly. Maggie leaned in to scratch Artemis around her ears and under her jaw, smiling at the wriggly, excitable dog.

"Did you miss us, little fish?" Artemis wriggled in Bucky's arms and tried to lick Maggie's face in reply.

Morgan followed Artemis over to the newcomers to the apartment, and smiled when Maggie scooped her up onto her hip.

"Hello there, Morrigan." Maggie pressed her lips to the top of Morgan's head, and rolled her eyes when her niece just twisted sideways to scratch Artemis's stomach. "I see you also missed us."

Artemis twisted to nip at Morgan's fingers, making the girl squeal.

Pepper stepped back into the living room, her feet bare on the soft carpet and her calm blue eyes on Maggie and Bucky. "I hear the mission went well."

"If you can call getting drenched in fish guts _going well_," Bucky said with an easy shrug, leaning out of Artemis's lick-radius.

"We're all fine. Alien fish are dead or heading back to space with Thor," Maggie summed up. Her eyes darted between Pepper and Rhodey, and then to the girl in her arms. "So."

"_So_ indeed." Pepper crossed her arms over her chest and her eyebrow lifted.

Maggie swallowed. "Are you going to make her leave?"

"No!" Morgan shouted. She wriggled out of Maggie's arms and ran to her mom. "Don't make her go!"

Pepper smoothed her hand over her daughter's head and eyed Bucky's armful of dog. "Give me a reason not to."

Maggie had prepared for this, but it was Bucky who stepped forward. "She's well-trained. F.R.I.D.A.Y. keeps an eye on her, and she's never gotten into any areas where she'd do harm or get in the way. She's never been in any publicly accessible areas or the labs. The no-animals rule is stupid to begin with, no offense intended-"

Pepper held up a hand and sighed. "Alright, alright. I've got bigger issues to deal with than you two getting a dog." The weary look on her face shifted a little and she smiled down at Morgan. "And I didn't want to have to make her leave."

Bucky set Artemis back down to the floor and after quickly shoving her head between first Maggie's knees, then Bucky's, she loped across the living room to stick her head between Pepper's knees and stay there. Pepper looked remarkably at home, dressed in her business wear with a black and tan three-legged dog wedged between her legs and her daughter beaming up at her.

Maggie and Bucky turned to Rhodey. He shrugged. "I didn't make the rules, and I'm no snitch."

The corner of Maggie's mouth curled up. "There's a walk schedule on the fridge. Feel free to add yourself if you like."

"Me first!" cried Morgan. She whirled and ran into the kitchen, her feet slapping on the tile.

Rhodey climbed to his feet more slowly and went to inspect the fridge ("Seriously, Sam found out before me? You don't even like him, Barnes!") and Maggie went to start the coffee machine.

"Promise not to tell Tony?" she asked Pepper. At the fridge, Morgan batted Rhodey's hand away from the walk schedule. "And, uh... how good is your daughter at keeping secrets?"

Pepper's eyes glinted. "You'd be surprised. Don't worry about us."

Maggie smiled guiltily. "So will you help me change the rules?"

Pepper sighed, and leaned over to scratch Artemis's ears. "I'll try. But you know it's not my rule."

Maggie knew: the rule in question came from Maria Hill, and Tony. Hill had appeared at the Facility around the same time everyone else did, promptly announced that she'd been secretly dating Agent Asfour for months, and then got to work running the show. Fury was off with his bestie Carol doing who knew what.

Hill was adamant about keeping the non-residential areas of the facility strictly professional, and ran it all like an army base. She was a godsend, but if anyone was likely to send Artemis away it was her. Tony agreed with Hill, surprisingly, and Maggie was painfully aware that he'd never had a pet that wasn't made of metal in his whole life.

She sighed. Artemis seemed to sense her dismay, and gave up Pepper's knees for hers. She smiled at the warm head that appeared between her knees, and glanced down at Artemis's dark eyes. "Keep up the cute," she advised. "That's your one bargaining chip, young lady."

* * *

Maggie had faulty intel.

She'd thought Hill and Tony were in D.C., meeting with senators about the Avengers. She and Bucky wouldn't have brought Artemis to the Avengers common room if they hadn't been sure of that intel.

But sometimes intelligence was faulty, sometimes ops turned, and sometimes your bosses walked in on you as you played with your prohibited dog in the middle of a highly secure facility.

When Maria Hill and Tony walked into the common room, everyone went silent. All the Avengers were currently in the common room, as most of them had been watching the baseball game on TV. Vision froze in the kitchen where he'd been making snacks.

Maggie lay on her back on the dark carpet, with a very wiggly Artemis standing on her chest.

Hill and Tony's eyes zeroed in on the large, gangly dog with its wagging tail, and then flicked to Maggie's face.

"Uh… help," she tried. "This wild dog is attacking me."

Artemis dropped her head onto Maggie's sternum and touched her damp nose to Maggie's neck. The Avengers sitting on the couches around her looked from her and back to Hill and Tony.

Hill's eyes narrowed. "How long has there been a dog in this facility."

When no one seemed inclined to answer her, she crossed her arms and snapped: "F.R.I.D.A.Y.?"

"Seven months and three days, Agent Hill," F.R.I.D.A.Y. replied dutifully.

Hill's eyes seemed to harden with ice as she looked around at the frozen Avengers. "And you all knew?"

No one answered her, again, but their guilty faces said enough. Sam's beer was frozen halfway to his lips.

"Whose dog is it?"

Bucky and Maggie raised their hands.

Hill let out a sigh and glanced upward, as if searching for strength. "This is a _military facility_," she exclaimed. "Not only will a dog interfere with operations, it's not safe _for the dog-_"

"Please," Maggie said softly.

Hill's mouth snapped shut and she cast a long look at Maggie.

"She's gotten in no one's way," Bucky added, on the couch beside Steve. "We keep her out of dangerous or public areas, she sticks to the residential areas and the forest. She comes back to our place when we leave, so she's only here half the time anyway."

"It's not a good idea-"

"Aw go on, Hill," Steve said. Maggie's head snapped to look at him and her eyebrows shot up at his wide, pleading eyes. "This place deserves to feel like a home, and having Artemis around really makes it one."

As if she could understand them (and Maggie had her suspicions sometimes), Artemis rolled off Maggie's chest and plodded across the room to Hill, sniffing cautiously. Hill did not uncross her arms, just watched the three-legged inspect her boots, blink up at her, then stick her head between her knees.

"What is it doing."

"She does that," Natasha observed. Hill looked up and met her eyes. "Let her stay."

Hill let out a world-weary sigh and turned to Tony with raised eyebrows.

Throughout Hill's interrogation Tony had hung back, his face unreadable as he leaned against the doorframe and watched the proceedings. He had a manila folder tucked under his arm and orange sunglasses shielding his eyes.

When it appeared Artemis's fate rested in his hands, every Avengers' eyes turned on him. He reacted to the attention as he always did: with showmanship.

After a long, dramatic silence he brought his thumb and forefinger to his mouth and let out a piercing whistle. Artemis's ears perked up and she wriggled out from between Hill's legs, turning toward Tony with a wagging tail and bright eyes.

"Sit," he commanded.

Artemis sat, her tail still wagging and all of her focus on Tony. Maggie slowly got to her feet with wide eyes.

With a small smirk Tony abruptly shifted his stance, throwing up his palm in his classic 'repulsor' pose as he exclaimed "bang!" Artemis reared back, her single foreleg flailing, before rolling over onto her back, splaying her legs and playing dead. She couldn't quite stop her tail twitching.

The Avengers stared from the prostrate dog to Tony with his outstretched hand. After a long, incredulous moment, Tony said "good girl!" and Artemis bounded to her feet to accept scratches and praise.

Hill pinched her nose. "You've known all this time, haven't you?"

"Yes I have," Tony said in that universal pet/baby voice – high, excited, slightly nonsensical. "Yes I have!" As he answered Hill's question he patted Artemis all over, not seeming to mind her nosing and licking all over his expensive suit.

"_What_?" exclaimed Maggie, now on her feet but not quite sure she hadn't entered an alternate dimension. She realized Bucky was beside her radiating stunned shock.

Tony looked up, took in everyone's faces, and snorted. "Please, I knew about Artemis the second she arrived in this facility. I've known about her longer than _you_, Maggie."

Maggie's mouth dropped open and she looked around at her teammates. They all seemed equally as surprised as her, except for… her eyes narrowed when they landed on Pepper. Pepper shrugged and gave her an apologetic smile, as if to say _I've been a double agent all this time._

"I wanted to see how long you'd keep up the charade," Tony continued as he scratched the spot under Artemis's jaw that seemed to turn her legs into jelly. "I've been visiting whenever you guys are in training or meetings. Got harder once you started letting all these squares in on the secret, but we manage. And before you ask, Morgan's known this whole time as well. My six year old played you for a fool, superspies. Didn't she, Artemis?" Artemis's ears perked up at her name and she wriggled in closer. "That's right, who's your favorite? Who's your favorite human, Artemis?" The dog practically launched herself at his face and covered him in kisses, and Maggie and Bucky looked at each other, aghast.

But after a few seconds of dumbly staring at each other Maggie noticed a rising gleam in Bucky's eyes and she couldn't help it. She burst out laughing.

In the gales of laughter filling the Avengers common room, Hill cast her eyes heavenward once more. She recalled someone once wrote in the original Avengers Initiative file that the management of such large personalities would grow easier with time. She wanted to _strangle _that person.

"I'll redraft our animal policy, shall I?" she suggested to absolutely no one, and turned to get back to work.

She did stop to scratch the tall, gangly dog between the ears, though. She was only human.

* * *

"I'm glad you're not all keeping secrets from each other anymore. It was relatively harmless, but it seemed silly to all be visiting Artemis while still keeping her a secret. Plus I didn't like the idea of teaching Morgan how to lie so well."

"Well, Hill didn't know. And it's these peaceful times, Pep. We've gotta feel like we've got some kind of intrigue going on."

"Of course you do," Pepper sighed.

They were walking Artemis along the lake shore with Morgan, just the three of them, watching Artemis and Morgan dart in and out of the water to their right and investigate the tall grass to their left. Morgan ran ahead of her parents with Artemis, laughing at the dog's antics. It was a cool day, particularly with the breeze wafting off the still silver lake, and the smooth lakestones crunched under their feet.

Artemis's walk schedule was full up for the rest of the month, so they were lucky to get this slot on a quiet Saturday morning. Tony had only been able to walk Artemis on rare occasions before the Big Reveal, usually sneaking her out of Maggie's place with Morgan for a quick ten minute walk, and never with Pepper, so it was still a novel experience. He felt almost _normal._

"I'm still surprised you took to Artemis the way you did," Pepper observed, linking her arm through his. Her wedding brand brushed against his skin. "Maggie was worried you didn't like dogs."

"I just never really saw the point of them before," he shrugged. "They need so much feeding and cleaning and _walking_, and I had better things to do."

She smiled at him. She had strawberry-blonde flyaways floating around her face, like a ginger halo. He decided not to share that observation with her.

"You do realize that you've been successfully feeding and cleaning and walking your daughter for years now?"

Tony shrugged. "I'm speaking for Past Tony here. Present Tony cannot be held accountable for Past Tony's thought processes, opinions about dependents, or misguided wardrobe choices."

Pepper rolled her eyes at him, and after checking on Artemis and Morgan – about thirty feet ahead of them, nosing around the nearby forest line – Tony leaned in to take Pepper in his arms.

"I love every part of raising Morgan. Even though she'll probably be sick of me by the time she's like, eight."

"That's not true," Pepper said softly, and leaned in to kiss him. Tony leaned into the kiss, holding her closer when it turned out to be one of those head-reeling kisses that reminded him how lucky he was to be alive, standing on a shore with his wife and daughter and his little sister's dog. Pepper leaned back and smiled at him. "I give her a good sixteen years at least."

"Ah, the teen rebellion years. That's going to be fun." He cast a glance at Morgan, who was tossing sticks for Artemis.

"I can only imagine how yours went."

"You don't have to imagine, the tabloids are probably in an archive somewhere." Pepper broke and burst out laughing. Tony was about to describe one of the more colorful incidents of his youth when Artemis suddenly started barking: not her usual excitable barks but a snarling, threatening sound. Tony looked up just as she charged into Morgan, knocking her down into the gravel with a startled cry, then took off running down the shore.

"Artemis!" he called, surprised. Her ears were flat back against her skull and her lips were curled in the most ferocious snarl he had ever seen on her young face as she tore across the shore, sending stones flying in her wake. On the ground, Morgan's mouth fell open. Artemis's barks echoed across the lakefront. She ran at nothing in particular, but there was something to the focus in her eyes…

Pepper spun around. "What is she-"

They watched as Artemis's hind legs bunched and she leaped into thin air, teeth bared, and closed her teeth around… nothing. But her teeth _clung _to nothing, and Tony found himself in the surreal position of watching Artemis float in midair, her teeth lodged in something that he couldn't see. Her hind legs windmilled and she jerked her head, jostling the apparently thin air between her teeth.

"Oh my god!" Pepper cried, as Artemis got tugged along by whatever invisible thing she was biting. Morgan climbed to her feet and took a few hesitant steps towards the floating dog.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y.," Tony intoned, and slammed his hand over the arc reactor on his chest. His armor flowed over his body and seconds later he was staring through his HUD.

"There's nothing on the scanners, boss," F.R.I.D.A.Y. told him, "I've got no sign of anyone breaking the perimeter and-"

"Scan for negative space," Tony cut her off, "Where the air _is, _and where it isn't."

"Five seconds, boss."

"Pep, grab Morgan and get out of here!" Pepper was already sprinting toward their daughter as the _RESCUE _suit flowed over her body.

Tony's repulsors were already active so he blasted off the shore toward the dangling Artemis (relaxing incrementally when the suit came between Morgan and whatever weirdness was going on) just as Artemis yelped, recoiling as if she'd been struck, and fell to the rocky ground. Tony's heart clenched in his chest but Artemis was already rolling back onto her three feet and turning, her nose twitching until her focus locked once more somewhere up the beachfront. Tony raised his palm and fired a repulsor beam.

It had been a last ditch hope to fire in the direction Artemis's nose pointed. But the energy beam connected with _something. _The beam collided with the something about thirty feet away, and as Tony watched, the _something _glitched and crackled like a static-filled TV screen before resolving into a humanoid shape. His HUD zoomed in on the shape, picking out the outline of a person wearing some kind of thin grey head-to-toe suit. The person stumbled, lifted a hand to the charred spot on their back, and then face-planted on the rocky shore.

Artemis barked once more.

"Good girl," Tony said. "Stay." He looked over his shoulder to see Pepper scoop up Morgan, shielding her with armored arms.

"Scans complete," F.R.I.D.A.Y. said. "I've got three more unaccounted-for negative space signatures fleeing north."

"Pepper, watch Artemis!" Tony shouted, and then shot off in the direction of the other intruding signatures. When he landed in the forest in front of their escape route, his HUD picking up the negative space as blurry black outlines, his fists curled. The invisible people stumbled backwards.

"You hurt my dog."

* * *

With the four intruders in custody, it was short work to figure out who they were (a group of high-tech thieves planning to steal Avengers technology), how they were invisible (they'd developed 'anti-tech' suits invisible to scanners and the naked eye) and where they were from. They'd had some nasty drug concoctions and weapons on them, so who knew what they were planning to do to anyone who got in their way. Tony and the others went after their headquarters and snapped up the rest of their group with probably more violence than was necessary.

With the threat neutralized, everyone's attention went back to Artemis. She was fine really; there was a bruise over her right hindquarters where the fleeing thief had kicked her, but she was happy as ever and relished the attention she got from everyone who heard about her misadventures on the lakefront. The Avengers fussed over her and showered her in treats and affection. Morgan, who had a small scrape on her elbow after being knocked back by Artemis's protective charge, was in danger of never letting the dog go again. Maggie and Bucky discussed training her in personal protection, if her instincts were to chase and attack intruders.

For his part, Tony bought Artemis a brand new dog bed; not the most expensive on the market but certainly the most comfortable that money could buy. Pepper had put up with nearly a whole day of him and Morgan selecting the best one.

"Tony," Maggie chided when he presented the gift, though her tone was soft.

"What?" he said. "It's hazard pay." Artemis, who'd been sniffing the bed, turned her head up to him and he ruffled her ears. "She's a proper Avenger now."

**Author's Note:**

> So I think only one person guessed from the snippet last chapter that this would be a dog - good job to that person, and to everyone else? Gotcha.


End file.
